563. Diana Durham

Buddha at the Gas Pump

Diana Durham is a British/American poet and writer who draws on archetype to explore our identity. She's a poet, writer, and documentary film producer who, following a degree in English Literature from University College, London, took the ‘path less traveled’ and became involved in an intentional community in England, the United States, and Canada. In the early 1990’s she was among a grouping who began to explore dialogue and collective intelligence with the late theoretical physicist David Bohm. Her most recent book Coherent Self, Coherent World: A New Synthesis Of Myth, Metaphysics & Bohm's Implicate Order explores how our thinking becomes coherent when our ‘personality self’ is in a meaningful relationship with a deeper, more intuitive quality of awareness and identity. And it also traces how, when we are disconnected from this intuitive source, our thinking becomes incoherent leading to problematic outcomes. The work grew out of her deep study of the Arthurian and Grail Myths, explored in her former nonfiction book, The Return of King Arthur: Finishing the Quest for Wholeness, Inner Strength, and Self-Knowledge, as well as her participation in dialogue with Bohm. Other works include the novel The Curve of the Land; and three poetry books: Sea of Glass, To The End Of The Night and Between Two Worlds a collection of sonnets (Chrysalis Poetry, UK). Her poems have also appeared in numerous magazines in the UK and USA, including Orbis, Tears in the Fence, Kindred Spirit, Mankato Review, Northern New England Review, Parabola, and Ecozone@:European Journal of Literature, Culture and Environment from Leiden University, The Netherlands, as well as in twelve anthologies, including Soul of the Earth The Awen Anthology of Eco-Spiritual Poetry edited by Jay Ramsay, published by Awen Press, UK, The 2008 Poets' Guide to New Hampshire published by the Poetry Society of New Hampshire and Diamond Cutters: Visionary Poets in America, Britain & Oceania edited by Andrew Harvey and Jay Ramsay, published by Tayen Lane. She also wrote, performed, and co-produced a dramatic retelling of the Grail Myth called Perceval & the Grail which is in CD and downloadable form as an audio play as well as a 15-part animated series on YouTube. She was a Visiting Research Associate at the Women’s Studies Research Centre, Brandeis in 2011, and gave talks and workshops using the grail myth sponsored by the NH Humanities Council (in the US), as well as national and international women’s groups and business executives leadership training courses. In addition to writing books, she collaborates with her husband as writer/producer of documentary films. Their current project is a series of short films, 'Making Sense’. For their first film, they talked to psychiatrist Dr. Iain McGilchrist, author of ‘The Master & His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of Western Culture’. Website: dianadurham.net Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group. Interview recorded August 8, 2020 Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast. YouTube Video Chapters: 00:00:00 - Introduction to Buddha at the Gas Pump 00:04:05 - The Energy Within Us 00:08:17 - The Introduction of David Bohm 00:12:17 - Science and the Distrust of Science 00:15:35 - The Limitations of Scientific Understanding 00:19:21 - The Existence of Consciousness Beyond the Body 00:22:32 - Distorted Spirituality and Materialism 00:25:44 - The Vesica Piscis and the Inner Self 00:30:25 - The Vicious Cycle of Consumption and Addiction 00:34:50 - The importance of intuition in consciousness 00:39:26 - Living from Intuition and Cosmic Intelligence 00:43:58 - The Loss of Inner Juice 00:47:49 - The Expansion of Meaning through Inner and Outer Interaction 00:52:40 - Skewed Values and Negating Intuition 00:56:54 - Finding Beauty and Fulfillment in the World